1. Technical Field
The present invention relates in general to the presentation of a document within a data processing system and in particular to the presentation of a document having a variable data area. Still more particularly, the present invention relates to method and system for easily identifying a variable data area within a document and for specifying format parameters for a variable data object to be presented within the variable data area.
2. Description of the Related Art
Many industries, for example, the publishing and direct marketing industries, rely heavily on high-speed, high-resolution, large-capacity printing. These industries often make use of so-called Print On Demand (POD) print environments that are capable of producing over 400 pages per minute (100 pages per minute in full color) at resolutions of 600 pels per inch or greater. The high performance requirements of a POD environment necessitate the transfer of massive amounts of data to the printhead--on the order of 30 MB per second.
Within POD architectures, data to be printed is typically transmitted to the printer as a document, which comprises both the collection of data objects that constitute the document's content and the resources and formatting specifications that dictate the processing functions to be performed on that content. Documents are constructed of one or more pages, and the pages in turn are made up of data objects such as bar code objects, graphics objects, image objects and presentation text. Each data object has associated layout information that directs the placement and orientation of the data object on the page, as well as the measurement units, page width, page depth, and other format parameters. In addition to fixed data objects such as presentation text, which may be common to multiple copies of a document, POD architectures also typically support variable data objects, which can be unique to each copy of a document. Fixed data objects and associated formatting information are typically conveyed to POD printers in a page description language (PDL) such as PostScript.TM..
Documents received by a printer in a PDL must be raster image processed (hereinafter referred to as "ripped") before printing in order to obtain the dot pattern that is to appear on the physical print medium. Because of recent improvements in data stream transmission, document caching, paper handling, and duplex printing, the speed at which the raster image processor within the printer is able to rip documents often determines the maximum performance capability of a POD system. If multiple substantially similar copies of a document are desired, ripping the document can be expedited by identifying fixed and variable portions of the document, ripping the fixed portion (the base document) only once, and using the resulting dot pattern for each copy of the document. However, it is often difficult for a user of a POD system to identify which portions of a document are variable data areas and to specify format parameters for the variable data objects to be presented within the variable data areas.
As should thus be apparent, it would be desirable to provide an improved method and system for presenting documents within a POD environment. In particular, it would be desirable to provide an improved method and system for identifying variable data areas of a document and for specifying the format parameters of variable data objects.